It is well known that washing items, such as clothing, shoes, hats and the like, in a washing machine often proves insufficient to thoroughly clean particularly dirty items, especially shoes, which must be manually scrubbed in order to become clean. As an added problem, shoe laces must be removed from the shoes prior to being placed within the washing machine to prevent the shoe laces from becoming tangled with mechanical components in the washing machine, such as the agitator. As such, shoe laces must then be manually scrubbed in order to become clean.
Devices that may be placed in the washing machine to assist with the washing process are well-known. For example, at least one known device allows a user to place a clothes-washing ball within the washing machine. The clothes-washing ball includes a number of bristles that contact the clothes during washing to brush the clothes. This is not conducive for use with items prone to tangling, e.g., shoe laces, as the shoe laces would quickly become tangled around the clothes-washing ball. Other cleaning devices are made of material having different buoyancy, resulting in the cleaning devices being distributed throughout the washing machine, to aid in cleaning a majority of the fabric. Unfortunately, these devices also cause shoe laces to become tangled around the devices. Other known cleaning devices for use in the washing machine dissolve in water, thereby rendering them useless for scrubbing heavily soiled items.
Known clothing bags used within washing machines often prove difficult to insert and remove clothing. Such clothing bags also fail to include a scrub brush or bristles exposed on the outer surface of the bag to assist with scrubbing clothing items that may be located outside of the clothing bag. In the same vein, such clothing bags do not include inner protrusions that reduce or prevent friction when the clothing bag is exposed to the internal components of the washing machine, e.g., the agitator.
Therefore, a need exists to overcome the problems with the prior art as discussed above.